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Have you seen it? HAVE YOU SEEN IT?! THE TRAILER?! THE BEST TRAILER?!
Sorry. I’m a bit excited. But only because 2013 is going to be the best year ever. EVER. BELIEVE IT.
Why are you looking at me like I’m insane?
Perhaps I need to slow down. To breathe. To mention what I’m talking about. *deep breath*
Pokemon X & Y. The Sixth Generation. Another new Pokemon experience (okay, fine… as new as they get). A new Region to explore. A new League to challenge. And, of course, a bevy of new Pokemon to catch, train, battle, and love. Have I mentioned I’m a bit obsessed? Yes? Well, bear with me anyways.
To those familiar with the franchise, this news may not be very exciting. “Fine, it’s a new Pokemon. But they’ve never really been new. They’re always the same game, just with better graphics each time. The gameplay never changes, and the story only barely does. All you get are a few more Pokemon.” This isn’t untrue. Most likely, Pokemon X/Y will still be extremely familiar. To put it in the most positive light, Game Freak (Pokemon‘s development team) sticks to its guns: while Pokemon spinoffs are have occasional changes or innovations, the core series remains unchanged. As I mentioned before, the only real advances are made by way of graphical enhancements. Yet even these advances are dictated by Game Freak’s platform of choice, which is always Nintendo’s latest handheld. This time around, that platform is the 3DS.
However, unlike the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and DS, the 3DS has extraordinary significance for the series. It means Pokemon… in 3D. No, not James Cameron 3D; I mean Ocarina-of-Time-style 3D. This may be (extraordinarily) behind the times, but guess what? Realize it or not, this is what you’ve wanted since you became the Champion of the Kanto Region. You’ve wanted the Pokemon world to truly expand, and, now, it finally could.
Over the years, the Pokemon franchise has grown up. Most noticeably, its graphics and sound have improved exponentially since we listened to the incomprehensible beep-boops of the original game’s endearing but foul-looking sprites (Gen 1 Charizard: Not badass). By Black 2/White 2, everything from our itinerant pre-teen avatar to our team of “pocket-sized” beasties became brightly colored, impressively animated, and sonically pleasing (if, perhaps, inaccurate). Even Pokemon‘s barely-existent plot has evolved significantly since the days of Team Rocket. As I’ve discussed before, the Fifth Generation of games actually started asking relevant questions like “Are we enslaving these intelligent, powerful creatures?” and “Why aren’t these ten-year-olds in SCHOOL?!” The climax of the B/W storyline actually made me gasp, since I didn’t expect a twist in the Pokemon formula (and it was pretty badass). There’s an incredible Pokemon competitive scene as well, which (to me) is one mark of a mature and complex game.
Yet, for over a decade, one element of Pokemon hasn’t changed at all: the way we view the world. Out of battle, we hover, omniscient, above our wee Trainer, directing his/her movements on winding Routes, over rock-covered mountains, and through Trainer-infested forests. In battle, we watch from the shoulder of our Pokemon, as if we were the Trainer behind them, directing their battles and staring down our foes. Finally, looking through our bag is a set of menus, more organized and complex as the years go on (our pockets grow larger, our Pokedexes more functional). That’s it. In the recent generations, there is the occasional quasi-cinematic set piece, a picture that conveys some of the world’s depth, but these are few and far between. We are stuck, stuck above heads and behind shoulders and in menus. Stuck moving up, right, down, or left. We’ve been stuck there since Kanto.
Pokemon X/Y and its 3D setting is an opportunity to change ALL of this. A mountain will no longer be a series of planes with zone-changing staircases. Now we can climb! Reaching a peak is less of a puzzle of staircases and more of a decision on what path to take. The tall grass, perhaps the most important environmental feature in Pokemon, is no longer a tile that swishes around slightly when you step on it, inexplicably rife with Pokemon. When your avatar enters three-dimensional grass, it’s substantive and deep: you actually don’t know what’s in there. It could be a Poochyena, it could be a Pikachu, but either way there’s a sense that there could be something in that grass with you. Imagine if exploring Viridian Forest had been as creepy and dark as the rumors and the (surprisingly evocative) soundtrack implied. The reason it wasn’t was that you could see the path ahead, the way out, and every person along the way. With a 3D, behind-the-character perspective, you can’t see everything around you. This change to the in-game visual information adds so much to the discovery and exploration theme of the Pokemon IP; now, there’s so much you won’t see until it’s already upon you.
Then there are the battles themselves, the entire strategic focus of the games. To be honest, it’s not as if the 3D aspect is going to add any strategic depth to Pokemon, but it is going to add flavor. Yes, the Moves/Pokemon/Items/Flee UI will still be there; it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to issue voice commands to your Pokemon in this version (… but Game Freak pls). However, there will also be two Pokemon… standing. Against each other. And when they attack, the fire, electricity, leaves, or water will arc across the battlefield, striking the opponent and inflicting visible damage for the very first time. For years we’ve seen sprites flash and life bars decrease, but (other than in Pokemon Stadium and its associates) we’ve never seen Pokemon hit each other. One of the coolest parts of the Pokemon universe just got so much cooler. You know what else two adjacent sprites have never conveyed? SCALE. You may have read the Pokedex, you may know intellectually how large a Gyarados is, but you’ve never SEEN that in the game itself. Nope, for us, our Pokemon has always been the bigger one, just because of the space it takes on the screen. But, with a 3D engine, we could actually see a Dragonite towering over your Koffing, witness Dialga casting his massive shadow on your Piplup. For the first time, the dimensionality of Pokemon can truly be conveyed. Which will change the (Pokemon) world entirely.
Unfortunately, these are only guesses as to what Pokemon X/Y will achieve. The trailer, cool as it may be (to the obsessed), doesn’t show much other than some basic running, battling, and exploring… not very useful for understanding the capabilities of the game overall. Also, frankly, Game Freak tends to disappoint when it comes to innovation; as wonderful as their series is, the fact is that they’ve had so many opportunities to advance the series, but have never taken them. It’s entirely possible that they won’t take this one either. But the important part is that it could happen. We could see something completely new. Game Freak does make use of their current platform, and the 3DS is capable of doing everything I just described. Most importantly, if these capabilities are utilized, how fucking incredible will that be?!
I’ve loved Pokemon since I was ten. But there’s always been something missing. Something that other games have provided. An immersive world. It’s what made games like Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or Final Fantasy VII, or even Super Mario 64 so compelling. And though Pokemon has one, it’s been the same for far too long. Even as I kid, I knew that if I would love to truly explore a Pokemon world, not just hover above it. Now we might finally get that: a world in which the tall grass obscures what dangers lie ahead, where oceans and deserts are wide and deep, where Haxorus is a giant, intimidating beast.
I’m SO FUCKING EXCITED
You can read this post and many, many more at the N3rd Dimension.
